Police confirm heart attack was cause of death

OTTAWA — As she waited for paramedics to arrive at the condominium unit of Jim Flaherty Thursday afternoon, Dr. Kellie Leitch tried in vain to resuscitate the former finance minister.

Leitch, a pediatrician who has been called an “unofficial member” of Flaherty’s medical team, is an Ontario MP and Flaherty protégée who lives in the same building as him when she is in Ottawa. Flaherty, 64, died of a heart attack. Leitch performed CPR on him, police confirmed.

In a statement, Leitch’s office credited Flaherty with helping her launch her political career. “Jim encouraged me to get involved in politics and was the most dedicated mentor that a person could ask for,” the statement said.
“He was my champion.”

Leitch, who is now minister of Labour and of Status of Women, was among the many mourners as Prime Minister Stephen Harper addressed the Conservative caucus Thursday on the sudden, shocking death of Flaherty.

Flaherty, the green-tied former cabinet minister who was the financial rock of the Conservative government, died just a month after resigning from cabinet. He was pronounced dead at his condominium in Ottawa’s Byward Market.

After nearly two decades in provincial and federal politics, Flaherty had been planning a return to the private sector and to spend more time with his family.

News of his death quickly found its way to Parliament Hill, where members of all parties abandoned the partisan tone that often defines their work. They spoke fondly of Flaherty — not just for his work as finance minister, but the decency that made him such a likeable politician. In Canada’s political world, it was truly a death in the family.

Proceedings of the House of Commons and Senate were suspended as the prime minister, accompanied by his tearful wife, Laureen, addressed his caucus.

“Dear friends, today is a very sad day for me, for our government and for all of our country,” Harper told the MPs. “I learned a short while ago that our colleague, my partner and my friend, Jim Flaherty, has passed away suddenly today.

“This comes as an unexpected and a terrible shock to Jim’s family, to our caucus and to Laureen and me,” he said, adding that Flaherty will be “sorely missed” by MPs from all parties who regarded him with “great respect and affection.”

Harper then embraced some of those in the front row. Leitch and others were visibly upset.

Indeed, as MPs struggled with the shock of Flaherty’s death, it became clear that he was one Conservative who had never alienated his political rivals in a Parliament that has become known for its lack of decorum.

Flaherty had always inspired strong debate about the wisdom of his policies — ranging from tax cuts to cuts in government spending. But he had rarely hurled a nasty or personal blow at his opponents across the aisle.

NDP leader Tom Mulcair was close to tears as he spoke to reporters about Flaherty’s death, calling him an “extraordinarily dedicated public servant.”

“All his colleagues here in the House of Commons share in that loss,” said Mulcair. “He’s a good person. I had a chance to know him before being in federal politics, and he’s a strong, tough character. He’s always been very devoted.”

Liberal leader Justin Trudeau, who was in Vancouver, issued a news release expressing “shock and sadness.

“Jim was a dedicated Parliamentarian with a strong social conscience and fundamentally committed to the ideal of public service,” said Trudeau.

In January 2013, Flaherty revealed that he had been battling a rare skin condition, bullous pemphigoid, that causes large blisters on certain areas of the skin. Treatment usually involves powerful steroids that suppress the immune system.

In recent months, rumours about his health continued because of his public appearance: Flaherty occasionally walked unsteadily, and his speech was uncharacteristically slow and sometimes seemed slurred.

Flaherty announced his surprise resignation as finance minister on March 18, at which point he said he was “on the road to full recovery.”

“This was a decision I made with my family earlier this year, as I will be returning to the private sector,” he said in a statement.

The family released a statement Thursday saying that Flaherty “passed away peacefully.”

Former Ontario premier Mike Harris said he has spoken to Flaherty on the telephone on Wednesday. “He didn’t sound strong but he talked very positively about the ‘go forward.’ ”

“He was looking forward to spending more time with his family.”

Flaherty arrived in Parliament Hill in 2006 after a decade-long political stint in the Ontario legislature, where he had held several portfolios in Harris’s government, including finance.

When Harper took office in 2006 after 13 years of Liberal rule, he turned to Flaherty — as his most seasoned provincial politician — to take on the role of finance minister.

Flaherty became Harper’s political rock in cabinet — cutting the GST, implementing an unpopular flip-flop on income trusts, and eventually bringing forward a multi-billion-dollar stimulus program in 2009 to battle the global recession.

In recent years, after putting the federal treasury into a record-setting deficit, Flaherty devoted his budgets to steadily erasing the sea of red ink.

In his budget this year, Flaherty forecast the government would enjoy a $6.4 billion surplus next year.

However, he also put the government on its heels by publicly questioning the wisdom of the government’s plan to introduce income-splitting for families — a position that placed him at odds with other cabinet ministers and even Harper.

Mark Kennedy arrived on Parliament Hill in 1988 as an Ottawa Citizen political reporter and has covered eight federal election campaigns. He won a National Newspaper Award for enterprise reporting and... read more spent a decade specializing in health-care coverage. He is currently parliamentary bureau chief at The Ottawa Citizen.View author's profile